Feeling left out

Follows me like a winding

Mountain road

Curves around     around

My childhood years

Into all the chapters

Of adulthood

That come after

It takes root

I feel sure

This discomfort of aloneness

The Thanksgiving Day my father

Leaves

 

Father’s place at Grandmother’s table

For Thanksgiving dinner to be served

At one o’clock sharp

Stays empty all through the meal

I have no memory of this Thanksgiving

Day

I am seven years old

Can only now

Imagine what the atmosphere

Feels like surrounding the

Family

Gathered for Thanksgiving dinner

This Thanksgiving Day

 

No one can know

No one can guess

My father is on a train

He is leaving my mother

Leaving me

The emptiness of feeling left out

Begins this Thanksgiving Day

With only Mother     no father

In my home

A need to have what others have

The same size piece of chocolate

Cake

Is born

 

Now

A school of many years

Is passed

I abandon judgment to these

Years

Opening wide two doors

One to my mind

One to my heart

Nothing that happened

Owns a consequence

Everything evaporated

Into the ethers

Gone     done

I am only the observer

And

I am free